Ukraine and Russia launched waves of drone attacks overnight with reports of a fire at an oil refinery in Ukraine's Poltava region and four Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) being shot down over two regions in Russia's west, officials say. A Russian drone hit the Kremenchuk oil refinery in the central Poltava region of Ukraine, causing a fire, the regional governor, Dmytro Lunin, said on Wednesday. "Last night, Russians repeatedly attacked Poltava region. Our air defence system did a good job against enemy UAVs," he said on the Telegram messaging app. The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said air defence systems shot down 17 of 24 drones that Russia launched against targets in Ukraine.

There are just a handful of companies that have surpassed the $1 trillion market cap, including Google parent Alphabet, Microsoft, Saudi Aramco, Amazon and Apple. On Tuesday, California-based Nvidia's market cap jumped high enough to be among their ranks. The chipmaker, which makes graphics processing units (GPUs) that help power generative artificial intelligence platforms, has seen its stock price soar as more companies look to expand their AI offerings. Nvidia hit a market cap of $1 trillion Tuesday with shares opening at $405.95, although it eased below that milestone by midday after shares dipped below $404.86. The company's valuation puts it above Facebook parent company Meta, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway and Elon Musk's Tesla.

MOSCOW – Ukraine launched its biggest ever drone attack on Moscow on Tuesday but air defenses destroyed all eight of the drones, Russian authorities said, bringing the 15-month war in Ukraine to the heart of the Russian capital. Drone attacks deep inside Russia have intensified in recent weeks, with strikes on oil pipeline installations and even the Kremlin earlier this month that Moscow has blamed on Ukraine. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said two people were injured, one of whom was hospitalized, in the early morning attack. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

Russia has blamed Ukraine for setting ablaze one of its oil refineries, while Kyiv has accused Moscow of launching dozens of overnight strikes by unmanned aerial vehicles for the second day running. The targeting of the fuel facility on Thursday occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region, Russia's TASS news agency reported citing local emergency services. A fuel reservoir was on fire, it said, but gave no further details. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught fire near a bridge linking Russia's mainland with the occupied Crimean Peninsula. "A second turbulent night for our emergency services," Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram, confirming tanks with oil products were set ablaze.

A massive Crimea oil reservoir fire broke out after the site was hit by a drone, according to video posted Saturday. A Ukrainian drone strike caused a massive fire to erupt at an oil depot in Crimea, a Russia-appointed official reported Saturday. Mikhail Razvozhayev, Russia's selected governor of Sevastopol, said that authorities had spotted two "enemy drones" that attacked the depot, with four tanks burned down as a result. Local forces were able to shoot down a third drone and disable a fourth through radio-electronic means. Razvozhayev assigned the fire the highest level of difficulty to extinguish, but he claimed the fire had at least been contained.

A new model claims to predict when and where the next major earthquake may strike - just days after a 7.8 magnitude quake rocked Turkey and Syria, killing at least 19,000 people. Developed by a team of seismologists and statisticians at Northwestern University, the model takes into account previous earthquakes' specific order and timing rather than just relying on the average time between past earthquakes. This method also explains why earthquakes tend to come in clusters. The team found that faults have'long-term memory,' which means an earthquake did not release all the strain that built up on the fault over time, so some remains after a big earthquake and can cause another. Seismologists have traditionally assumed that big earthquakes on faults are relatively regular and that the next quake will occur after approximately the same amount of time as the previous two.

According to the White House, the informal Quad alliance of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States has decided to deploy machine learning and other cutting-edge technology to improve cyber security. During a meeting of the Quad Senior Cyber Group on January 30 and 31, representatives from Australia, India, Japan, and the United States reaffirmed their commitment to advancing an inclusive, free, and open Indo-Pacific region, according to the statement. The Group pledged to use machine learning and related cutting-edge technologies in the long run to improve cyber security and create secure channels for private sector threat information sharing and Computer Emergency Response Teams (CERT), according to a statement released by the White House on Thursday. It added that these goals are a key component of the group's forward-thinking, cutting-edge work plan. The group also committed to developing a framework and methodology for ensuring supply chain security and resilience for information communication technologies (ICT) and operational technology (OT) systems of critical sectors.

SINGAPORE: Who do you think should be responsible when artificial intelligence or algorithms malfunction: The programmer, manufacturer or user? Singapore plans to be a global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) by 2030. This involves, on the one hand, widespread deployment of AI in a variety of settings, and on the other, widespread trust in these AI solutions. Clearly that trust needs to be well-placed, but what does it mean for trust to be well-placed? Certainly, one part of this is AI getting things right reliably often. But that alone is not enough.

SoftBank-backed Z Holdings will merge its two wholly owned subsidiaries -- Yahoo Japan and messaging app Line -- by March 2024 to streamline its operations in a bid to position itself as a world-leading artificial intelligence company. Z Holdings President Kentaro Kawabe made the announcement Thursday after the decision was approved by its board of directors, but details are yet to be made public. Line President and Z Holdings co-CEO Takeshi Idezawa will become Z Holdings president on April 1, while Kawabe will become chairman. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

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